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Monday, 15 September 2014

EUROPEAN SOCIALIST PARTIES UNDER THE WEIGHT OF NEOLIBERALISM

The decline of the European
Socialist parties – France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Greece – represents
the triumph of neoliberalism that the conservative European parties imposed on
Europe in the last three decades. Not just the German elections of autumn 2013,
but the complete embracing of neoliberalism by Francois Hollande and acceptance
of austerity and monetarist policies has entailed that Socialism has no
relationship to it ideological and historical roots. Not that the French
Socialist Party has enjoyed much credibility in the last two decades,
especially considering the corruption and scandals of its leadership, but only
because the conservatives under Sarkozy were also corrupt and scandal-ridden,
and were leading the country deeper toward recession did the voters turn to
Hollande. However, the future for the French Socialists looks no brighter than
it does for Socialists in the rest of Europe. Hollande’s decision
to dismiss the cabinet in August 2014 after the economy minister criticized the
German fiscal and monetary model imposed on all of Europe signaled the unmitigated
submission of French Socialists to neoliberalism. The decision of the French
Socialist government further signaled to the EU that there is no policy difference
between the neoliberal direction and goals of conservative Germany and
Socialist France that was once believed to be free of German influence.
Announcing a new round of tax reductions to the businesses and cuts in the
budget targeting social programs, Hollande, who has a mere 17% public approval,
caved under the pressure of banks, financial firms and large corporations that
support the German austerity model. This officially marked the end of Socialism
in France as anything but a name used for public relations purposes to secure
votes from those identifying with the party that once stood for
class-consciousness based economic, political and social policies and its roots
are in the Marxist tradition.

The popular base of the
Socialist parties of Europe has shifted from the working class before WWI, to
the lower middle class and upper working class (highly paid trade unionists) in
the last half century. While the Socialists always worked within the
parliamentary system and were never revolutionary, they at least insisted on
political reforms that would provide greater economic, social and political
benefits for the lower strata of society.

The Socialist reformist
program (rationalizing capitalism under the state’s tutelage) had become part
of the Keynesian model from the 1930s until the 1980s when Socialist parties
began to abandon their reformist social welfare positions and increasingly
moving toward the neoliberal model and globalization. In the last two decades,
and especially in the last six years amid the global recessionary climate,
European Socialist parties proved repeatedly that they are solidly behind
finance capital without any sense of accountability to their middle class and
upper working class constituency whose interests have been irreparably damaged
by the massive transfer of resources from the social welfare state to the
corporate welfare state and the decline of living standards amid double-digit
unemployment.

Considering that European
Socialist parties represent finance capital, considering their recent history
of betraying voters with false promises, lying to them to win elections in
France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and even Germany, the question is whether
European Socialism has a future and whether it should claim the name “Socialism”?
It is true that European intellectuals and trade union leaders were always
behind the European Socialist movements and political parties, and that this
has been a top-down political organization and not grassroots. However, it is
also true that those intellectuals were driven by idealism and not raw desire
for power and wealth as the current leadership across Europe. Not only did the
Socialist lose their way once they embraced nationalism and capitalism above
loyalty to the working class across national borders, but they continued to
deteriorate after the Bolshevik Revolution when they moved father to the right
and became anti-revolutionary, in essence an integral part of the institutional
structure of capitalism.

The cooptation of Socialist
parties into the mainstream of capitalist institutions necessarily entailed
embracing finance capitalism with some state controls to coopt the lower
classes. The only question remained to what degree were Socialists any
different than liberals or conservatives? Until the 1980s, Socialists claimed
that they were the defenders of the middle class and workers because they
believed in institutional protections for workers and maintained some
commitment to social justice through human rights and civil issues. However, by
the late 1980s to early 1990s, it was evident that Socialist parties across
Europe were interested in “Clintonizing” their parties so that they would
appear Socialist to their constituents, but in reality pursue fiscal, monetary,
trade, investment and labor policies no different than their conservative
counterparts.

The image of Socialism
remained in the forefront, but the essence was gone. It took the austerity
orientation that Germany has been dictating to the rest of EU since 2010 for
many people to see through the farce of Socialist myths. If Sarkozy and
Hollande are both equally committed to austerity and neoliberalism, then why
should the voter choose Socialism that merely lies to the voters to secure
power and serve finance capital? This meant that for those seeking an
alternative neoliberalism, there is always the neo-Fascist alternative of
Marine Le Pen in France, for example, or the Communist Party that has its own
historic problems and lacks credibility more than the neo-Fascists. The same
holds true across Europe, where voters are becoming increasingly polarized as
the European Parliament elections demonstrated in 2014.

When Europeans watched the
Greek Socialist Party PASOK take the lead to place the country under IMF-EU
austerity in 2010, many argued at the time that Greece was the exception. PASOK
had won with 45 percent of the vote, while it currently has 4 percent in
opinion polls. Portugal, Ireland, and Cyprus followed the same path; and
informally, so did Spain, Italy and France. The pattern proved that IMF-German
imposed austerity policies acceptable to Socialist parties of Europe was the
norm, demonstrating that Socialism was hollow and represented financial
capitalism rather than workers and the middle class. Just as prepared as the conservatives
to do away with workers' protection ranging from social programs to maintaining
wage rates, the Socialists argued and continue to do so that "there is no
alternative", presumably to neoliberalism as though everything starts and
ends with neoliebral policies.

The only choice of voters
was where to cast their vote because the two-party system of Europe began to
resemble the two-party system of the US where the differences between
Republicans and Democrats are on the cultural issues and stylistics about the
environment and similar issues rather than what core class interests each party
represents. Has Europe become like the US where the voters know there are only
stylistic differences on essential social, economic, and foreign policy issues?
Has European Socialism lost its way from its Marxist origins to become even
more apologetic of capitalism than conservative parties?In 1912, Socialism
experienced its zenith, declining very rapidly thereafter as it embraced the
nationalist over the internationalist position on foreign policy on the eve of
the Great War. The triumph of Wilsonian liberalism during the 1910s and
the political realities of postwar reconstruction amid political polarization
with Fascism and Nazism on the rise in the 1920s presented opportunities for
Socialism to emerge in a leadership role across Europe. However, with the
exception of France and Spain under the Popular Front in the 1930s, Socialism
suffered setbacks across Europe, largely because of lack of cooperation with
the Communists and other progressive parties, but also because it was
increasingly a status quo party. The New Deal in the US, and the adoption of
the Keynesian social welfare model that provided an institutional safety net
for the lower classes essentially meant the Socialists were satisfied working
with the system to promote capitalism that made modest concessions to the lower
classes and allowed for the possibility of upward social mobility.

Using the argument that
Socialist parties are committed to social justice, defending trade unions,
defending the poor, defending minorities, defending collective bargaining, and
guarding against the abuses of capitalism, Socialist parties were able to keep
their popular base, while securing the support of capitalists who understood
the significance of social harmony under a social contract where labor and the
lower middle class enjoyed some benefits and believed the system served them as
well as the capitalists. However, the triumph of the US over the Communist
bloc emboldened the neoliberals interested in crushing even the remnants of
Keynesian policies that were left over from the 1908s when Reagan and Thatcher
had begun to dismantle the social welfare state in order to strengthen defense
and the corporate welfare state.

In the absence of
Communism, the conservatives turned their attention on Socialists whose
policies were hardly any different than those of neoliberals. With the advent
of environmental political parties, essentially bourgeois in every sense given
that their commitment to social justice was as diluted as that of the
Socialists, the attack on European Socialists came from different directions,
including the far right. To preserve the institutional gains Socialist parties
had made throughout Europe, they turned to the right, embracing globalization
and neoliberalism, further alienating their voters who remained loyal to
Socialism as it once was rather than it had evolved. Merkel’s monumental
political success and Germany’s unquestioned economic hegemony convinced
European Socialist leaders that their only option was to pay homage to
neoliberalism and its austerity policies that finance capital advocated.

After all, what choices did
voters have but to remain loyal to Socialism no matter how far to the right it
had evolved, considering that across Europe the conservatives appeared strong.
The voters of course have signaled that they are willing to go to the far
right, abandoning the two-party system representing neoliberal thinking. Not
just Greece where neo-Nazi Golden Dawn ranks number three in public opinion
polls, but in all of Europe from Austria to Italy the far right is making a
strong return because the Socialist parties are even more bourgeois and
neoliberal than the conservative, and most voter seeking an alternative have no
faith in Communism, given its 20th century history. The political
polarization of the European political arena is the result of the Socialist
parties falling victims to cooptation by the capitalist system. If we examine
individual Socialist leaders in Europe, we find that they are no less corrupt,
no less clientist in their mode of operation, no less power hungry and
unconcerned with the lower classes than conservatives.

One option for the future
of European Socialist parties is to abandon neoliberalism and return to their
ideological roots and unyielding commitment to social justice. Slowly, they may
be able to rebuild their parties from the grassroots level, rather than
accepting massive campaign contributions from capitalists and trying to pass
out clientist political favors as a way to build a popular voting base. The
other option, and much more honorable, is for Socialists to disband and declare
themselves openly neoliberal advocates. Trying to fool people that they are
“Socialists” has its limits and the very low popularity of Hollande as well as
of all Socialist parties clearly indicates as much.

There are leftist parties, including Greece’s
SYRIZA that currently leads in opinion polls, as well as the Scottish Socialist
Party, and others resisting conformity to neoliberalism and defending social justice that have no political baggage as the
established European Socialist parties do. Perhaps these parties represent the
new hope for those progressive voters looking for a party that pursues social
justice policies and does not simply use the title “Socialist” to attract
votes. It remains to be seen what the future holds for Socialist parties, but
at this juncture things look as bad for them as they do for the Communist
parties.

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